Visiting the vuvuzela. Production: The maker has never heard of the World Cup

Fans of the World Cup are playing "vuvuzela" to cheer for their favorite team. Our reporter Liu Jiankun Jiangxiajuan, King Jinyan and a few coworkers in Shi Yijun home plant, to the vuvuzela to repair, and put them into cartons. Guo Dengti accompanied his children to dinner in his own home.　　Shi Yijun sits in his office. "Freezing point feature": Small workshop to fight the World Cup Zhejiang Women Jiangxiajuan and the World Cup seems to have nothing to do with: she does not understand the football game, also do not know the stars on the field.　　Even as she was sitting in the factory, busy cutting off the edges of the plastic horn in her hand, she was talking about a married son, a walking grandson, not a game far from her. Of course she did not know that the commonplace horn in her hand had a foreign name called "Vuvuzela."　　She would not have expected that the loud noises of the horn, which had nothing to do with her in South Africa, had almost "killed the whole world." In South Africa, as well as in all corners of the World Cup, the horn created by Jiangxiajuan has become the focus of attention. The German football team's doctors are thinking about letting their players carry their ears; French fans describe themselves as if they were sitting in a "swarm of bees", and even a Spanish writer angrily complained in his column: "The vuvuzela has made us all mad!" "But for the 45-year-old rural woman, that horn is just a livelihood for her earning 6 yuan an hour."　　On the June 25, in the courtyard in Ninghai County, Zhejiang Province, she and her workmates chatted fits and made the vuvuzela work as if only to fill the gap between the chats. There is a big name, "The Plastic factory," but it's just a few rooms separated by the boss Shi Yijun's house.　　The workers are mostly neighbors, or relatives of the bosses.　　"In fact, I'm just a family workshop ..." said this, the Zhejiang man face a little embarrassed expression. But this family workshop, in the past year, has created more than 1 million "noisy world" vuvuzela.　　Most of them were transported to South Africa and then televised, ringing the world over.　　However, both for Jiangxiajuan and her coworkers, as well as the boss Shi Yijun, these voices are a little too far away from their world. "Unexpectedly, China's football did not enter the World Cup, our horn has been advanced to go" but the vuvuzela drew many reporters, Shi Yijun's factory is easily submerged in the surrounding dwellings, can not draw attention to people. There is no plaque, there is no sign, the cement wall painted yellow color, the top has been secretly written on the "Dredge pipe", "drilling" ads.　　The only remaining piece of couplets, not only by the rain washed away the color, even the handwriting is blurred. Most of the visiting journalists would not have imagined that the vuvuzela's most important "production base" would be so shabby. Through a library that doesn't even have a door.Room, the boss's mother-in-law will be from the right-hand side of the kitchen to greet, and in the room converted into the processing workshop, while gossiping busy processing the vuvuzela female workers, but also stop the work of the hands, smiled and nodded hello. The world-famous South African horn is disgraced here. They are placed in a few dusty green woven bags with holes in them, or they are randomly arranged on the ground.　　Others were placed in boxes lined in parallel, waiting to be transported to South Africa, or somewhere far away. Over the past week, dozens of of the media have been found here, with Chinese and foreigners. A worker in an interview can not help but touch the back of the head: "Such a small family workshop, every day there are so many reporters, we are embarrassed." In any case, the factory, which has only about 10 workers, has become eye-catching with the vuvuzela. Almost all of its workers are women, most of them from the village, and only two are from Yunnan.　　Often journalists try to delay their work by asking them to talk about football, the World Cup or the vuvuzela, these unfamiliar words. Because there are too many reporters, these women who never watch the ball game are now talking about the World Cup in South Africa. The 31-year-old King Jinyan finally found a chance to see fans playing the vuvuzela in the World Cup broadcast. She gathered excitedly: "This horn seems to be we do?"　　"and Jiangxiajuan finally watched a ball on TV, but did not leave a good impression:" A moment someone fly kick, like war ... " Before that, they "even heard the World Cup", but now, in the face of foreign reporters camera, King Jinyan has been laughing loudly to express their feelings: "I did not expect that China's football did not enter the World Cup, our horn poured advanced." "Think about it, she made up a sentence:" A Chinese team did not go in, I am not wrong? "Isn't that the long horn we produced?" "Even the boss Shi Yijun was late to realize that his horn was in the World Cup."　　He claims to be a real fan, even though he hasn't seen the football game in a long time. When Shi Yijun sat in front of the TV and watched the first match after the World Cup opening June 11, the boss wondered: "How could this year's World Cup be so noisy?" "The next day, when I saw a picture of the vuvuzela on the TV news, Shi Yijun startled:" Isn't this the long horn we produced? "In addition to receiving interviews and receiving clients, Shi Yijun spent most of the time in his office at the corner of the stairs," he said.　　The small room on the ground with a simple blue floor leather, the window of the place with a mahogany tea table, with a notebook computer, a calculator, and some print data messy stall. The young boss, with a flat head and dark shirt, often sits on a small bamboo stool in front of the coffee table, and he is always crooked, with his ears and shoulders in his cell phone, confirming to the clientOrders, the fingers on the right hand are constantly tapping on the keyboard to cope with the anxious customers lining up for shipments. He has been working with plastics since he was a young man, and he has also operated blow moulding molds in his workshop. The plastic that brought him great business today was a great trauma to him when he was young: when he was 19 years old, his left hand was broken by the machine.　　But now, few people know this, and in the face of outsiders, he always hides his left hand in his pocket. Shi Yijun produced the Vuvuzela's inspiration from a foreign comic. In 2001, he saw in a Black-and-white comic strip that a "primitive tribe" of African Aborigines danced and put a long horn across his chest.　　The text below the picture explains that this is a kind of bamboo horn, is used by locals to drive chimps. "Maybe it can be made into a fan horn.　　"All day long thinking about the Shi Yijun of making a difference, using black plastic to make a few, and according to the description of the picture, he also made the horn-shaped horn as a section of the appearance of bamboo." At the time, the Zhejiang man was particularly interested in all "audible things" because the factory was ready to switch from a plastic kettle to a fan horn. He made horns that were cylindrical and needed to be blown from the side, with three of different horns and a chord, and a horn that looked like a beer bottle.　　These different horn samples, together with the black Vuvuzela, were sent to the Canton Fair, Yiwu small commodity market, and were photographed and hung on the Alibaba website. Until a week ago, however, Shi Yijun learned the name "Vuvuzela" from a journalist.　　Before that, he had listened to foreign clients call them "Weowi" (Vovo), but he himself simply called them "horns", just like the "Tri-horn", "Horizontal horn" and "wine bottle horn" that lie in the sample area.　　In Germany the World Cup no one to ignore the horn, was going to sell crazy at the World Cup in South Africa. Shi Yijun originally planned to use this "unique" Horn in the 2006 World Cup in Germany to make a fortune, the result, they are not at all, but is another common domestic three-tone horn, sold 200,000. "Maybe it's because it's hard to blow," he said. Shi Yijun explained this to reporters.　　The cone-shaped vuvuzela is just a hollow plastic pipe, a lot of people can not get a sound when they are dizzy. In the years that followed, Shi Yijun almost forgot the trumpet, which had never been mass-produced.　　Until the July of 2009, a black man from Yiwu small commodity wholesale market to find his factory, hoping to buy 1000 vuvuzela. Shi Yijun did not know that one months ago, the "Confederations Cup" football match in South Africa had made the name vuvuzela the world's horn.　　He did not think that such a speaker in Germany's World Cup would be "crazy" in the World Cup in South Africa. Shi Yijun spent one weeks revising the mold, and soon handed overThis order.　　Subsequently, traders from Europe and Africa also found him online, and the number of orders grew to tens of thousands of. The real "shock" to his order appeared in the year 2010. On the day of the year, Shi Yijun received the phone call, a Belgian dealer hoping he could send a few samples, and named "Dutch Flag" orange color.　　Not long after the sample was sent, he received a reply: the other party placed an order, the purchase quantity is 1.5 million. "Do not sleep can not finish Ah!"　　"Shi Yijun eventually took 800,000 orders and completed them two months later," he said. By the end of April, Shi Yijun had finished the last order from South Africa and felt the World Cup business was over.　　The distance between the two countries will take more than 30 days, and later, the goods will not be able to reach South Africa before the start of the race. Behold, after the World Cup began, people quickly found many vuvuzela production from China, and soon found a few key manufacturers in Zhejiang and Guangdong.　　As more and more people poured into the small courtyard, Shi Yijun found that his factory was really "red". He kept getting all kinds of calls, some asking for interviews, and others hoping to get a sales agent for the factory. Their super long standby cell phone battery two weeks, often less than a day of power. Many domestic businesses are also starting to order the vuvuzela from here to sell to domestic curious fans. The workers in charge of color matching found that "as long as there is a team out, it will be the color of the order."　　Several workers at the factory worked day and night, and Shi Yijun sat in front of the computer every day until one o'clock in the morning to get the online order back. The Shi Yijun workers are working overtime. Jiangxiajuan Hand sharp knife several times almost cut his finger, while another is responsible for blow molding of the female worker Guo Dengti, the right hand of the thumb on a few more blisters left scar.　　However, for them, the monthly salary has also risen a lot. Every day, the vuvuzela made by them is neatly stacked in cartons, moved onto a train, transported on S034, and then driven into Yong-tai high-speed. From here to 130 kilometers west, is China's largest small commodity wholesale market, 50 kilometers north, is connected with more than 600 international ports of Ningbo-Zhoushan port.　　That box of Vuvuzela, from here, was transported abroad, and finally reached the distant World Cup arena.　　"At least, now I don't have to bask in the sun," said Guo Dengti, a 38-year-old who made 800 vuvuzela products a day, but never heard of a "noisy world" in the World Cup. Her job is to blow the horn.　　In her hands, the vuvuzela is like a bottle, not only not sound, but also slightly inattentive through two layers of woolen gloves, iron to their own. However, her working environment is not devoid of sound. In a cottage with a red brick façade, the roar of a machine, the sound of a half man's high fan, and the metallic percussion of a mold impact, people often need to get close to shouting,To hear each other's words. Here is another plant in Shi Yijun, where several workers finish the first two steps of making the vuvuzela: blending and blow-moulding.　　The workers in charge of the mix need to mix the plastic to match the required color, sometimes on behalf of the Brazilian yellow, and sometimes on behalf of England's red, of course, the most orders, or embodies the host characteristics of the South African flag on the dark green.　　The blow molded by the Guo Dengti, then, is the hot plastic that is heated and processed into a vuvuzela shape. It must be hard to understand the Guo Dengti of someone who is playing the vuvuzela in the stands of the World Cup in South Africa. The air of the workshop was filled with the pungent smell of plastic heating, and she always stood in front of the small injection machine, constantly stepping on the pedal and then loosening.　　Her hand again and again from the mixer to remove a section of rubber hose as soft plastic, pinch both ends, elongated, and then slowly into the mold. By the time the inflatable ends, the original "rubber hose" has been shaped like a balloon, as the shape of a trumpet. She was going to take these still hot horns and put them on the workbench, waiting for them to cool and harden.　　Guo Dengti wears a double woolen glove, one of which has broken two fingers, and the heat of the plastic is drilled through the cracks in the yarn, leaving a brown blister scar on her thumb. The foreign woman from Yunnan in the factory is always expressionless, and rarely talk to people around. She just repeats the motions over and over again and throws the semi-finished products into a woven bag next to it.　　If a reporter came to interview, she occasionally will spit a few words in reply, but most of the time is only a long silence. Guo DENGTI can earn 1 cents for each semi-finished product that makes a plastic. One months down, her income is 2000 yuan. The original, plus the husband's income, two people one months can save one thousand or two thousand.　　The couple took their daughters to settle down in the village of Jiangnan, and soon they gave birth to a son. But this satisfying life drew a pause last year.　　Always good husband suddenly because of waist ill, this has not read what book of wife can't tell the husband's illness, only know that he has no way to work for a long time, to the hospital inspection, treatment and spent the most of the family's savings.　　So, in the husband's two days before resuming work, the home each month only she one person's income, but must maintain four person's life, but also has to help the husband to pay hundreds of yuan the medicine, this has almost made the family to be stretched. Almost all of the same jobs with Guo Dengti are her countrymen.　　Shi Yijun's brother privately disclosed that this work is actually very dangerous, often workers are tightly closed the mold clip fingers, if it is migrant workers, but also to compensate for some medical expenses, if it is a local, it is Shang. But none of this scares back Guo Dengti. She never wanted to give up the job herself.　　She even felt that the job was "much better than it used to be in the house", "at least now I don't have to bask in the sun". After opening the door,She'll say a few more words. In the roar of the factory noise, Guo Dengti close to the reporter's ear shouted: "In fact, I have no way." After all, my husband is not good, I want to raise this family. This time, is 6 o'clock in the afternoon, this mother, wife at home to serve the children after dinner, and on time to stand in their own jobs, face expressionless repeat those mechanical movements.　　The World Cup will be over in more than 10 days, but she does not know when her toil will last.　　"The World Cup is all made in China, only the team is not" at the same time, Guo Dengti's female workers also returned to another plant and began to continue their work. The plant is located at the home of Shi Yijun, dozens of metres away. Jiangxiajuan and her companions sat at the door of the room, no noise, no pungent smell.　　Some of them were responsible for cutting off the "bottle" and "bottom" of the semi-finished products, giving them a horn, while others were responsible for smoothing all corners and wrapping them in cartons. Jiangxiajuan just finished dinner at his home. Her home was next to the Shi Yijun yard, and for that reason, she joked that every day's work was like chatting to a neighbor's house. She was holding a knife in her right hand, sliding back and forth along the top, bottom and sides of the horn, and cutting off the sharp barbs.　　In order to prevent the knife from grinding blisters, her right hand wearing a thick wool gloves, and in different colors of plastic debris contaminated, the glove can not see its original color. King Jinyan is responsible for cutting off the "bottom of the bottle," she described it as "cutting the butt." She can handle a horn in a few seconds, cut more than 2000 a day and bring her one months of income of nearly 2000 yuan. This makes this "boss's sister-in-law" proud unceasingly: "Not everybody can do this!" "In the summer of Jiangnan, King Jinyan hand also with thick gloves, because afraid of sharp knife cut himself." These women workers did not really hurt experience, there was a careless, in the glove cut a soybean size hole, we hurriedly make a fuss: "Really want to stroke the hand, that still got AH?"　　He said, laughing and joking. The world-sweeping vuvuzela, as well as the full tournament, is really affecting their lives because of the extra work that has been done to increase orders.　　The impact, though, has little to do with football. In this Jiangnan county, the World Cup did not show its consistent charm.　　Even in the busiest business district, there are no posters about the World Cup, and at night, there are no additions to the World Cup with the bar. "What a good football, the Chinese team played too bad." "I might as well go to sleep," Jiangxiajuan's son sat lazily at the table, wiping his mouth. "But for the women, the vuvuzela seems to have opened a window to the world for their lives." In King Jinyan's view, without these trumpets, she and her companions might not have thought of seeingCup。　　Because "this place in the country, where will see this". And now it's different, even though they don't understand the game, but others find something new on the court. For the first time in South Africa, King Jinyan saw the black man's appearance. She sat in the factory and described her new findings to her companions: "We've been talking about the World Cup in South Africa, and I didn't expect South Africans to be so black.　　It's like ... " She looked around, and finally found a man in black: "Just as black as her clothes!" "Won't you?"　　"A few women's workers talked for a while and laughed together. Besides football, other information about the outside world is pouring into this small factory.　　Someone asked a reporter from Beijing to go to Beijing to see how much money Tiananmen needed and how long it would take, and someone wanted to see the World Expo, especially the British pavilion "like a Hedgehog". The constant stream of visitors brought them a lot of fresh news.　　Now, many of these women are able to say a few words about the World Cup, such as "China is not absent in the World Cup", or "the World Cup is made in China, only the team is not". "That means we Chinese people have a brain." King Jinyan Smiling raised his voice, "We will not lose to them foreign!"　　"They don't know that in this World Cup, in addition to the vuvuzela," Made in China "covers almost every corner of the field, including seating, clothing, and the only football that has been named" celebrated ".　　Even in order to counter their vuvuzela noises, in Dongyang, Zhejiang Province, dozens of kilometers away, 300,000 earplugs have been flown to South Africa.　　There were also signs of Chinese companies appearing on the football field, and Chinese companies were the first to become official partners in the World Cup. "China is the 33rd strongest in the World Cup.　　A fan joked.　　The story of the World Cup has nothing to do with them. But as a part of the "33rd-strongest", Shi Yijun doesn't feel like a winner. The 1 million vuvuzela that was sold before the World Cup opened did not make Shi Yijun any money. The price of each horn is only two yuan a little more, and the profit is only a dime, "basically just walk volume."　　And when these plastic horn across the sea to South Africa, immediately the value doubled, the highest can be sold to 60 South African rand, the equivalent of RMB 54 yuan. Shi Yijun that this is the domestic factories competing against each other malicious prices caused, because "this thing has no threshold, who can do."　　He claims that he will be in the future to design a product to apply for a patent, but, at present, the most rapid change is he has quietly raised the price of each horn set to 3 yuan of money. The unexpected opportunity to get the young boss's mind started to Wu Fan. He did not reject any media interviews, and contacted the advertising agency in private, hoping to help him create a website that, with the attention of the vuvuzela, allowed the factory"Well developed."　　By contrast, the women workers in the company's plastic products factory do not seem to have any specific desire, as their bosses do.　　For them, the constant influx of orders means that wages in points or cents will rise a lot.　　Jiangxiajuan feel, every day I go to the neighbors and friends chat, do work, an hour incredibly have 6 yuan of wages, his life is nothing to improve. Guo Dengti had a wish. Before her husband was ill, she had planned to save enough money to renovate her house first.　　This room has only a small window, the ground always has a cold moisture, the roof is lined with a piece of fangyubu used to block the leakage of rain, but has become gray wall is also a child full of illegible handwriting. But now, with the husband's body collapsing, these wishes also collapsed.　　"There is not enough money in the house to have two children ..." she bowed her head and refused to speak. The vuvuzela, which they are working day and night, is now changing the World Cup.　　On the evening of June 25, a famous star declared that he had not heard the offside whistle for the vuvuzela noise, and that the commentator in the field had been hoarse at the sound of the trumpet. Although many people hate the harsh sound, this does not prevent it from selling.　　The vuvuzela's hum echoed in more and more places, and there was no sign of a pause. But thousands of miles away, the tiny village in the hinterland of Zhejiang, China, makes the vuvuzela's heart.　　The story of the World Cup has nothing to do with them. Jiangxiajuan has come home from work and hurried to lie down to sleep, she "has no time to watch TV." Guo Dengti today is in the night shift, she is energy-saving lamp pale light, while repeating the machinery of labor, side against their own sleepy intention.　　And Shi Yijun is still busy talking business, even his favorite Spanish team game, can only be left behind. Their world is a life-related story, and the vuvuzela hum, though noisy all over the world, it is difficult to drift into their lives.